International Relations and India's Foreign Policy
Foreign policy is the external face of sovereignty. The exam expects the principles India has declared, the institutions it works through, and the reasons behind specific decisions.
Principles and doctrine
- Article 51 directs the State to promote international peace and security and to settle disputes by arbitration.
- Panchsheel (1954, with China): mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, non-aggression, non-interference, equality and mutual benefit, peaceful coexistence.
- Non-Alignment: Bandung 1955; first NAM summit at Belgrade 1961; today recast as strategic autonomy and multi-alignment.
- Nuclear doctrine after Pokhran-II (1998): credible minimum deterrence, no first use, non-use against non-nuclear states.
Institutions and groupings
The UN (1945, 193 members; Security Council with five permanent veto-holding members - India campaigns for permanent membership); SAARC (1985, Kathmandu, eight members); BRICS; the SCO; the Quad; ASEAN. India hosted the G20 summit in New Delhi in 2023.
Neighbourhood and Tamil Nadu's stake
Relations with Sri Lanka are shaped by the Sri Lankan Tamil question and the 1974 Katchatheevu agreement, which the Tamil Nadu Assembly has repeatedly asked to be reviewed. The Gulf states matter for Tamil Nadu's workers and remittances. China is simultaneously a trade partner and a border competitor.
Worked example
'Why did India refuse to join either bloc during the Cold War?' Reasoning: newly independent India wanted autonomy in decision-making, needed development assistance from both sides, and had an unresolved border dispute with a bloc member. Non-alignment was a strategy for autonomy, not neutrality or isolation.
Traps
Equating non-alignment with anti-Westernism or isolationism; confusing Panchsheel (five principles with China, 1954) with the five NAM principles; and treating the General Assembly and the Security Council as having identical powers - only the P5 hold the veto.